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Friday, October 21, 2011

Quebec Politicians Give Montreal the Shaft

With the sovereignty movement deflating like a tire with a slow but determined leak, it's only a matter of time before the movement runs out of air and goes flat, destined to an ignominious end, tossed in the landfill of failed political movements.

While separatist diehards cling to the illusion that the independence option can be revived over time, they fail to acknowledge that time is their greatest enemy.

Ever since the last referendum almost 800,000 immigrants came to Quebec, upwards of 95% who will vote for Canada in any future referendum.
The great hope of sovereigntists, that given time, the children of these immigrants, forced into the French school system, would ultimately adopt sovereigntist tendencies commiserate with that of the general francophone population.

That premise has proved devastatingly false.
Second and now third generation descendants of immigrants, despite a French education, remain fiercely federalist, a fact that effectively hammers home the last nail into the separatist coffin.

Add to that, the general collapse in support for sovereignty from traditional supporters, fatigued and disillusioned, it means that things haven't exactly worked out well for the sovereignists.

And so, as the Canada versus Quebec debate fades to black from the political spectrum, a new battle arises, one that also augers poorly for Quebec nationalists, who are now forced to fight an unexpected rearguard action..

It is the battle between the two solitudes that have been forming over the last thirty years, with Quebec being split rather neatly between the island of Montreal which is moving, linguistically and culturally, farther and farther away from the Rest of Quebec (RoQ.)

It is a phenomenon that is so frightening to Liberals and Peekists, that they are banding together to thwart any change to the electoral map that would favour Montreal.

In the eyes of those from the RoQ and the majority of politicians who populate the halls of power in Quebec city, Montreal is developing into nothing less than a modern Sodom and Gomorrah, a den of social and linguistic depravity that is threatening to rip the social fabric of Quebec.

Visitors coming to Montreal from the hinterlands of Quebec can be excused for concluding that they are in another country. For many of them, it is the first time that they confront the new reality that is Montreal, an urban, heterogeneous melting pot of language, religion, customs and dress, similar to Vancouver or Toronto.
But for those born and raised in communities where 95% of the people are white francophone Catholics, its a shock to the system.

Most don't like what they see and many are frightened by what it portends.

The linguistic situation for those on the island of Montreal whose mother tongue is French is deteriorating, no different then the demographic upheaval in Vancouver and Toronto. There's nothing special or different going on in Montreal, it is a question of immigration policy that affects the whole country, where newcomers overwhelmingly establish themselves in the big cities.

Each year Quebec welcomes about 55,000 immigrants, 10,000 of which eventually flee to the greener pastures of Ontario and parts beyond.
Of the 45,000 who remain in Quebec, 40,000 settle in Montreal, half assimilating to the English side of the linguistic equations, half to the French.
Coupled with the fact that about 10,000 francophones flee to the suburbs each year, it means that Montreal is getting more and more, English and ethnic, while the rest of Quebec remains lily-white and French.
The unintended consequence of this influx of immigrants, who were meant to close the demographic shortfall caused by our low birthrate, is the effect of growth in the population of Montreal with an opposing decline in the RoQ.

There seems no way to reverse this trend. The new metro line to Laval and a soon to be built commuter line to the East, will hasten the flight of francophones to the burbs, leaving the island to Anglos and Ethnics who remain stubbornly attached to their ethnic and English neighbourhoods.

Although greater Montreal represents about half the population of the province, it doesn't enjoy half the representation in Quebec's Parliament, the National Assembly.
In fact, there are only about ten anglophones and ethnics in the National Assembly, when demographics dictate that there should be over twenty.

All of this is not news to regular readers of this blog, but there is
a disturbing development that remains largely unreported in the
mainstream Anglophone press.
That is, the deliberate attempt by
politicians to limit the influence and check the the rising power of this
upstart Montreal, in favour of traditional, white-Catholic francophones who represent the majority in the regions.

A 'deal' has recently been struck between the Liberal Party and the Parti Quebecois to limit the political power of Montreal, or rather, as they say euphemistically, to 'safeguard regional representation,' a fancy way of saying protecting regional 'over-representation'

The responsibility of drawing up the electoral map is the independent agency, the Commission de la représentation électorale (CRE,) created by Rene Levesque back in 1979 and charged with impartially and fairly drawing up the electoral map, making changes every few years to reflect demographic changes.
The commission doesn't have the power to create new ridings, but may move them around to better reflect population shifts.

In 2001 the commission, cognizant of the fact that Quebec had the most mis-representative electoral boundaries in any state or province in North America, asked the government to consider remedial action. After another six years of inaction the CRE proposed that three rural ridings be eliminated and be transferred to the greater Montreal area.
The government failed to act on its recommendation and stalled for two years. After a fierce lobbying effort to save the three ridings, the government with the help of the opposition PQ, passed a law, Bill 132, that suspended the CRE and its power to determine boundaries for seven months, just enough time for another provincial election.
The three ridings were saved while none were added to Montreal.

Now with the suspension over and the commission announcing that it will indeed chop the three rural ridings, the Liberal government and the PQ are planning once again to interfere with the democratic process of redistribution. LINK{FR}
Next week, Bill 19 will be debated in the National Assembly, proposed by the Liberals and which will be supported by the PQ. In the spirit of the 'Judgement of Soloman,' three seats will be added to Montreal, while preserving the three rural seats.
This will raise the number of seats in Parliament to 108, one more than Ontario's Parliament which serves one and a half times more people.

The English press has been largely silent on this issue and the only decent report on this 'deal' struck between the Liberals and the PQ appeared in La Presse. It's a wonderful expose that you shouldn't miss if you read French.

The paranoid fear of our elected officials that Montreal must be held at bay is highlighted by the preposterous proposition by Pauline Marois that an upper chamber to Parliament (like the Senate) be re-created that would represent the regions only.
I'm not kidding.

Francois Legault, leader of Quebec's soon to be newest political party, was not impressed with the shenanigans;

"When I see the Liberal Partyand theParti Quebecoisinterfere with the reformof the electoral map, I donot think thisiswhat democracy is about.In a democracy, the weight ofvotesshould be comparablebetween citizens," he said. LINK({FR}

"The great hope of sovereignists, that given time, the children of these immigrants, forced into the French school system, would ultimately adopt sovereigntist tendencies commiserate with the general francophone population, has proved devastatingly false."

I'm actually baffled that the PLQ didn't legislate electoral reform the day they won their first majority early in the new millennium.

I believe it was in the 1994 election that the PLQ and PQ each received 44.7% of the vote, but the PQ easily won because their votes were more spread out in those micro rural ridings whereas the PLQ's support was very concentrated, esp. in the West Island where the PLQ gets landslide victories.

Why Premier Goldilocks didn't implement electoral reform, especially when his majority was paper-thin in the last election is beyond me.

I told my companion, and she agreed, that the only reason Goldilocks is afraid to split those Western Montreal ridings is he's worried another party similar to Equality may form, and take those seats away from the PLQ. I cannot come up with a better hypothesis. Not that it wouldn't be a bad idea. The PLQ doesn't deserve Anglo and Allo votes, and with more ridings, another Equality-type party may have more influence. At the very least, it would take away those "gimme" Anglo votes the PLQ very undeservedly enjoys. The PLQ is just a "best-of-the-worst" option, not a vote for the PLQ because they do something for those constituents.

Everytime I come on this site, I can never help but feel that despite all your protestations that you're fighting for "equality," what irks you angryphones the most is that you lost priviledge. You hear it in comments like "Montreal used to be a world-class city" and " Quebec is a S*** province now." You are just as obsessed with ethnicity or language as Pierre Curzi or anyone. You're just the flip side of the coin. Coincidently, I have heard of anglo-quebeckers talking about taking action to "protect our minority in Quebec.." Sound familiar? But for some reason, anglos always seem to be geographically challenged (at least in the knowledge sense) because they never acknowledge that the rest of North America minus Mexico and some places in Florida and the South Western States are english-speaking. So you like to say that while english "needs protecting in Quebec" (despite MTL having McGill, Concordia, the Jewish General Hospital ????), you also like to say that "well if you're language can't survive on its own, maybe it should go the way of the dodo." Like having the cake and eat it too, I see. Its protect minority-rights and lingua franca wrapped into one. But which argument will it be today, praytell?

Ultimately however, though I know you will NEVER acknowledge any of this, you will say WHATEVER to suit and reinforce your position as the person "in opposition." Something which is completely silly given the reality of the language in the world today. You are not the victim, you are the colonizer or the "victor" (depending on how one wishes to interpret history) and we will never allow you the semantic honor of calling yourself "oppressed" when it was on the backs of french and natives that you attained this position (again, McGill, how did such a "great" university get there in the first place...). Call me a nationalist, call me a racist, whatever you want to justify yourself, since I know you don't have the intellectual honesty to consider the position of ther other. No matter how you try to dress your arguements up, this is a backlash - in every sense of that term. You are the white man caling the black man racist, the man calling the woman sexist, German calling the Jew facist. You are that person.

The question is, how can we accelerate the flight of bigoted Francophones out of Montreal so we can finally establish a bilingual (Bill 101 free ) city state/province? I'm not an Anglophone and I'm sick and tired of these people thinking they own the place and that the rest of us are inferior colonizers when they too themselves are descendants of French colonizers.

To Anon 2:29. You stated,"we will never allow you the semantic honor of calling yourself "oppressed" when it was on the backs of french and natives that you attained this position (again, McGill, how did such a "great" university get there in the first place...). " Enough blaming the Big Bad Anglo. When Montreal's English speaking community was FOUNDING and building these institutions what were Les Habitants doing? Building massive churches, having ridiculously large families and heeding every word of whatever the Parish priest said. Start blaming yourselves and your blind allegiance to the church. It was the Church that kept you illiterate and in the dark, not Anglos.

They were really thinking that. Bernard Landry articulated it recently during the debate over a possible extension of bill 101 to Cegeps. Landry said exactly that and added that Laurin, Levesque, et al were "too optimistic" when they were drawing up the plans to have immigrants steered towards francophone institutions.

"Ever since the last referendum almost 800,000 immigrants came to Quebec"

What?!? No source, of course...The year after the referendum, in 1996, there were 664,495 immigrants... that includes all born elsewhere going back to the early 20th century (old people)...2006: 851,555.2011: census data not yet available.

800,000 new immigrants since 1995? Impossible. Also, consider that for several years after the referendum the number of immigrants allowed was lower until the Liberals gradually started allowing more. This made the news over the years, too lazy to find articles and numbers. All I wanted to say was that your unsourced 800,000 figure is not realistic.

Source for 1996:http://www12.statcan.ca/english/profil/Details/details1pop1.cfm?SEARCH=CONTAINS&PSGC=24&SGC=46200&A=&LANG=E&Province=24&PlaceName=Montreal&CSDNAME=Montr%C3%A9al&CMA=462&SEARCH=CONTAINS&DataType=1&TypeNameE=Census%20Metropolitan%20Area&ID=365

664,495 immigrants in 1996. That even includes old people that arrived in the early 20th century.Now, in 2006:http://www12.statcan.ca/census-recensement/2006/dp-pd/prof/92-591/details/page.cfm?Lang=E&Geo1=PR&Code1=24&Geo2=PR&Code2=01&Data=Count&SearchText=Qu%E9bec&SearchType=Begins&SearchPR=01&B1=Immigration%20and%20citizenship&Custom=

851,555... so, 187,060 more immigrants.2011 data is not yet available but I doubt more than 600,000 immigrants arrived in five years... Also, consider that for the most part since the 1995 referendum the number allowed was lower than the current number. Over the years, the liberals gradually increased it and it made the news each time but I'm too lazy to find articles and numbers.Of course, a significant number of immigrants don't stay.

Your article is full of lies, here's another one:"growth in the population of Montreal with an opposing decline in the RoQ."

The island now accounts for a smaller percentage of the total population than it did 25 years ago says the QC government:http://www.stat.gouv.qc.ca/donstat/societe/demographie/dons_regnl/regional/ra_total.htm

Some fast growing towns and suburbs in Laurentides and Lanaudière (north shore) and Montérégie (south shore). I can post data if anyone cares. The linguistic stats of those regions all show a clear Francophone majority. Immigrants settle on the island. Quebec City (Capitale-Nationale) is doing good and so is its south shore (Chaudière-Appalaches). Big increase in Outaouais, Estrie, etc... the latter being the Eastern Townships, less English than ever yet a significant increase of population.Only the more remote and least important regions aren't doing as good but those who leave them settle in regions closer to Montreal.Overall, there is no decline in the RoQ. Some people move from a region to another. Francophone birth rate is much higher than before, I've posted stats here some time ago and will find them again if needed. Never has been a decline in the province's Francophone population from census to census. Percentage changed a little bit because of immigration but actual numbers of people with French as their mother tongue never declined (Montreal isn't the whole province) but the number of anglos did for so many decades.

"proposed that three rural ridings be eliminated and be transferred to the greater Montreal area."

Yes, new ridings in the greater Montreal area as in the north shore and the south shore perhaps? Those predominantly Francophone regions are growing faster than the island of Montreal and they don't vote for the liberals. Last election, the island was surrounded by PQ ridings*, next election it will be something else (François Legault according to polls) but it won't be the impopular pro-immigrant, pro-anglo liberals. I quickly looked at the riding stats and several have a higher population than many on the island including your west island example on your picture. So new ridings may not be a good thing for you. You have to thank the regions (not many minorities there) for the liberals' victory, Montreal ridings alone would have never given them a majority. Look at the map:http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/fc/Quebec2008.PNGSuburbs mostly voted PQ.

Now look at this language map:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Quebec_langues.png

The PQ is not very popular these days but neither are the corrupt liberals. Pretty much only Montreal ridings will elect them next time just like they always do. Francophone federalists will now have an alternative and the map won't be red in the RoQ. Even if all ridings were equal, it wouldn't make much of a difference. Minorities would still be concentrated in a minority of ridings because they are... well, minorities. You cannot control the majority of the assembly. Your Îles-de-la-Madeleine example of ridings being unequal is ridiculous. That's a special case for obvious geographical reasons.

Even if new pro-liberal ridings are created in Montreal, it won't be enough to win. Just like referendums (most No voters were actually Francophones) Anglophones and Allophones (a fifth of the population) cannot elect a majority (or even minority) government alone.

"No matter how you try to dress your arguements up, this is a backlash - in every sense of that term. You are the white man caling the black man racist, the man calling the woman sexist, German calling the Jew facist. You are that person."

You're exaggerating. The situation of the Quebecois in the past is hardly comparable with that of blacks in the southern U.S., Jews in wartime Germany or the plight of women.

And the blacks, Jews and women didn't pass racist, discriminatory laws against whites, Germans and men respectively at a later date.

"In fact, there are only about ten anglophones and ethnics in the National Assembly, when demographics dictate that there should be over twenty."

That has hardly anything to do with the riding themselves.It's because1) many anglophones and ethnics don't want to get involved in provincial politics and have to go to Quebec City and everything... About 400,000 people declared on the census they can't even speak French (essential for the job) so that leaves you less potential politicians2) even some west island ridings often elect Francophones so if you're not happy with them, vote for other people, boycott the liberal party.

It's like when some complain there are almost no minorities in the civil service but Quebec City is the capital and French is the official language, they don't want to move there to work there... it can't be discrimination if you don't even apply for the job in the first place. It's always been the capital, I don't see why it should be changed for a certain segment of the population. Moving the capital to Montreal would be giving priority to a special group as if they were more important citizens and would be unfair for others. Aren't we all equal?

Feisty separatist Anon, isn't 55,000 immigrants a year to Quebec the official figure, one that is often invoked by various French language protection organizations themselves? (Regardless of whether the immigrants settle in Montreal (most do), and regardless of how many francophones move out)

I'm not sure when this trend began, but if it did begin in 1995, then by now it would mean slightly over 800,000 between 1995 and 2011. But maybe it didn't begin in 1995 but more recently...In any case, it is obvious from the rhetoric of militant french language supremacists that immigration does pose a grave danger to the "survivance" of the French language and culture (read: the "survivance" of a majority -and therefore privileged- status of francophones - the real prize of the race...cultural and linguistic matters being just a smokescreen)

Whatever the annual increase was since 1995, right now it is 55,000 a year, which is not good for your political formation. Unless you start some sort of re-education camps up north for all immigrants arriving in Quebec, as Imperatif Francais suggested. Because as we know, secondary school immersion is not enough, and neither will be cegep immersion.

"Francois Legault, leader of Quebec's soon to be newest political party, was not impressed with the shenanigans"Oh the irony that you mention him, editor. He is not exactly a fan of immigration and anglos, unlike the current party in power.

"Francois Legault, co-president of the Coalition for Quebec's Future said he thinks Quebec should scale back immigration for two years.""And he's in favor of using the notwithstanding clause - if necessary - to further entrench the French language."http://montreal.ctv.ca/servlet/an/local/CTVNews/20110928/mtl_legault_110928/20110928/And some clueless anglos comment they would vote for him in the very same article oddly enough. Don't they realize they need immigration?

It appears the liberal regime will be over soon. Last poll showed only 22% support the liberals... most of them obviously being minorities. It's because of a combination of federalist Francophones and the Montreal ethnic vote that the liberals won in 2003, 2007 (minority government) and 2008. If only Francophones got to vote, the PQ would have won all elections which would have meant more Anglos leaving and less immigrants. I doubt there will be a Jewish Anglo as Minister of immigration under François Legault... I'm talking of course about Kathleen Weil, who used to be in a pro-anglo group in the past. Most people in this province probably don't even know about her. I will be called intolerant, I don't care. I am just saying what I am seeing. I am just saying that different parties produce different results when it comes to immigration and defending the French language. It's a fact whether you like it or not, don't get mad at me. I guess from an Anglo point of view any government that isn't liberal is a bad thing.

No it's only been that high for a few years:http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e3/Immigration_QC1.pngLiberals were in power before 1976 and from 1985 to 1994 and have been in power since 2003. It's no coincidence the number is higher under a liberal government.

"right now it is 55,000 a year, which is not good for your political formation"

You might want to read my comment at 12:58 PM.He's bound to win, polls have been saying so for quite a long time, the liberals will never recover from corruption scandals and in the unlikely event the PQ would make a comeback, they have talked about reducing immigration some time ago when a study on the French language in Montreal was published. The ADQ (hey, you never know) is also for less immigration, much less immigration. In the past they were pretty much the only party that dared talk about this (the PQ feared being called racists by the media but it's now accepted in the media) but now things have changed, people are worried about the linguistic situation on the island of Montreal.So yeah, whoever wins (not going to be Jean Charest for sure) will do something about immigration and English signs and whatnot. 2012. Spring, perhaps.Not good for your political formation...Legault won't care about anglos and ethnics if they don't vote for him and still vote for the liberals.

What about the period from 1996 to 2001. Also a greater number of allos and anglos stayed in Quebec since the last census. The article itself is about proven facts about gerrymandering of the electoral map.

The biggest indicator about the replacement population of immigrants is the school population. 1970s around 1.4 million kids in French school system (mostly pur lainer students) and 250 000 kids in the english system. Today around 101 000 in the English school system and around 920 000 in the French system. You can google the statistics because I am lazy to0 look at the source as well. How many of those 920 000 are non pur laine students in the Montreal area?

Also maybe editor was using sources from the scare monger pur laine chauvanists.

Anonymous, take a few moments to bow and pray to the flag (fleur-de-lis, of course). I'm not sure if you need it, but to set the mood for you, I found some patriotic music and a collection of images that dress up trivialities in a cloak of seriousness: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QUu-tV7rsqU&feature=related

Francois Legualt don't even got a political party yet. He is popular in the regions outside montreal. He will do more to split the pur laine vote between PQ, Quebec Solidaire, ADQ and his no name party.

I didn't think it was relevant because going from 1996 to 2006 includes those on the 2001 census that were still present in 2006 but if you must know:http://www12.statcan.ca/english/Profil01/CP01/Details/Page_Custom.cfm?Lang=E&Geo1=CMA&Code1=462__&Geo2=PR&Code2=24&Data=Count&SearchText=Montreal&SearchType=Contains&SearchPR=24&B1=Custom706,965 immigrants, five years after 1996's 664,495 immigrants. That not just recent arrivals. All foreign-born. When it comes to allophones/ethnics, just remember all the Haitians, Algerians (number 1 country of immigration for years), Moroccans (number 3, after France), Tunisians, Sub-Saharan Africans from former French colonies, etc... even many Latinos end up learning French more than English because it's a Latin-based language. Those people may be mostly federalist but how many will assimilate to English? So separatists don't really win but neither do anglos. They just end up living in ghettos not siding with anyone. They speak other languages at home but their first official language is French but they aren't counted as Francophones (French mother tongue). Only 15% of people with English as their mother tongue in 2006, a bit more than half with French and the rest being unclear but definitely not all anglicized allophones. Considering that, Montreal isn't exactly an English city like some wish it were. Far from it.

"Quebecs' immigration powers should be taken back by the federal goverment and then Quebec should be flooded with immigrants."

And some have been saying since the 1970s that Bill 101 should be made illegal by the federal government yet it never happened, just like your immigration plan will never happen but freezing immigration might because a premier has more power than you do...

"Francois Legualt don't even got a political party yet. He is popular in the regions outside montreal."Do you even realize that the great majority of ridings are not on that island? And that most people in Quebec don't live on that island? And that when including the south shore and north shore the greater Montreal area is 70% French? And accounts for a bit less than half of QC's population, the rest being almost totally French? The province is more than 80% French. Liberals cannot win with just 20%. He will have a party soon and he is far more popular than Charest or the others which means that in most ridings he will finish first, doesn't even need the majority of the vote to win a majority of seats, that's how it works. The vote might be split but there is always a winner and it won't be liberal candidates of all candidates. Even if he doesn't win them all (he only needs half plus one), where will the liberals finish first of all parties outside ethnic ridings (only a minority of ridings and they are not exclusively ethnic)? Whatever the outcome, the liberals are out. There is now an alternative to the PQ so things will be much different now. People want change. Remember the NDP mania.

I'm out of here, you keep living in denial but I won't be wasting my time on this anymore. Do you really think Charest will last forever?

How many latinos, morrocans, tunisians and africans have you met anon 2:04?

I went to ENglish school and my high school Canadian and quebec history teacher was a Tunisian ( he mentioned that despite speaking French he could not get a job in the Catholic French school boards and had to go into the protestant school board when he came in the early 70s to Montreal. I knew personally 3 haitians that took steps to get into English school through the unsubsidized private schools. I worked with dozens of Latinos in factories, who could speak both English and French but who mentioned that they had much more success with English dominated private companies in getting jobs then with pur laine dominated companies. I met some of their kids who went to French school and still spoke excellent English, who said the same thing about their interactions with the pur laine. I've met haitians, Algerians, a morrocan, Cameroonians, Mauritanians and Mauritians that were in Montreal and moved to Toronto to get jobs in their fields. They mentioned that when they first came to Montreal they were enthusiastic about being able to use their French. Then they realized they that with the pur laine they were not going to get much in terms of Job evolution. They ended up working odd jobs and then moved to Toronto to get jobs as Bilingual customer service and Tech support despite their deficiency in English.

See this kind of thing is just wrong. Even if all Allophones there spoke English as a second language, you don't care about Francophones. They do count!I have seen people here being annoyed that Québec is described as a French-speaking province but it is more Francophone than that riding is non-Francophone so why is one okay to say and the other isn't?If the riding were 75% Francophone, you would say it's a bilingual riding. If it were 90% Francophone you would perhaps start saying predominantly French-speaking but of course predominantly implying there are others. But when it's Francophones that are in a minority situation, it's always English riding, English town, etc...How is that tolerant and inclusive?

This is just proof that in a reversed situation, in a province that would be 80% English, we would be treated nowhere near as good as we have been treating you.

We already know that for most of its history, this province was bilingual while New Brunswick wasn't despite New Brunswick having a higher percentage of French-speakers than Quebec ever had English-speakers.

No Montreal mayor was ever as intolerant as this Moncton mayor:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leonard_JonesFind one Francophone judge at the Supreme Court who was ever intolerant towards Anglophones. You might want to read this:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivan_Rand

You are even trying to divide and conquer by dividing Quebec between "bilingual" (but do you really care about both languages or is it just a trick?) Montreal and the unilingual "Rest of Quebec" almost as if Montreal Francophones were fundamentally different from other Francophones but really you don't even care about them, you only want to take over the city. Multiculturalism? Oh yes, it's all good, as long as everyone speaks English...

In nelligan all the allos and anglos vote for the same parties and have natural common interests.

There are hardly any common interests shared with the pur laine. Its not anglos that are demanding reasonable accomadation commissions or doing bill 101. Its not anglos that control the Quebec government employment levels where hardly any anglos or allos are employed.

Sure Quebec is more French today then it was in 1970s? Despite bill 101 the demographics changed. The demographic bridge has been crossed and it can't be easily reversed.

IF demographics haven't changed much. Why all the concern about Montreal Island having a pur laine minority? It was 48% in 2006 census. Will be even less in 2011.

Before last census English speakers were severly undercounted. All of sudden Stats canada found there were over a million English speakers in Quebec and growing. Francophone birth rate is still low, if it increased it is a temporary phenomenon. Compared to Allos the birth rate is very low.

There just seems to be a lot of trivial statistics being thrown around. Ho-hum! It's all too easy to lie with statistics.

Anon @ 12:19PM came up with the most interesting statements: "many anglophones and ethnics don't want to get involved in provincial politics and have to go to Quebec City".

I don't know about that. I think with the discriminatory hiring practices of the civil service, most non «pur laine» people, after 40 years of this, are conditioned and know enough it's fighting an uphill battle.

"It's like when some complain there are almost no minorities in the civil service but Quebec City is the capital and French is the official language, they don't want to move there to work there... it can't be discrimination if you don't even apply for the job in the first place."

Huh? French was legislated as the official language of all Quebec 34 years ago. How do you know who does and does not want to move there? I never heard anybody say they wouldn't move to Quebec City. If I got into the civil service, I don't know about objecting to that. Housing is relatively cheap and civil service jobs pay exceptionally well.

Quebec City has two big drawbacks: (1) The weather there is downright lousy. Lots of precip and long, cold winters (coupled with very short summers); (2) Writer Michel Gratton wrote a book about French Canadians (ISBN 1-55013-438-8) back in 1992. He described Quebec City as being a very closed community where it's not easy to integrate if you're a newcomer and worse yet if you're not «pur laine».

My lady and I took a day trip to Q.C. about six years ago and we noticed the shopkeepers in the old city have gotten better at speaking English than when I was there for an extended period on business in 1990. Many appeared to be immigrants. I think over that 15 year period, it was learned that tourism is an important part of their economy and the more astute entrepreneurs got with the program.

Outside the walls, you're on your own and you'll be hard pressed to find English spoken. I think if the community was more open, this would be less of a problem.

But multiculturalism in French wouldn’t bother you one bit, would it? You wouldn’t have a problem with a Congolese and a Tunisian meeting up on the sidewalk of Toronto and having a conversation in French, despite the fact that A. neither of the two is French and B. English is the “official” language of Ontario? Yet you would fume against a Chinese and a Hindu speaking English to each other in Montreal because, as you’d say, A. English is neither of the two’s first language, and B. since it is Quebec and the “”official” language of Quebec is French, then the common language for such people should be French. Am I right?

Or when the so called “Festival des peuples minoritaires” takes place in Italy under the common language of French (http://www.regione.vda.it/cultura/eventi/festivalpeuplesminoritaires_f.asp), you don’t have a problem with it even though the festival is allegedly international.

I bet you are one of these people who yap about “linguistic diversity” even though it’s not what you really mean. You just want English out of the way so your language can take over.

And to answer your question: for me, multiculturalism is all good as long as people of different linguistic backgrounds speak a common language of their choosing, not a language passed down to them from the ruling body of some jurisdiction (an arbitrary unit after all) they find themselves in. That this language of choice happens to be English is purely incidental. What’s important is that it is the language of choice.

The imperatif francais types love all these committees and associations that don't achieve anything but do there best to get Quebec govt funding because they don't get many donations. Pur laines rarely put their money where there mouth is. They also love big bureaucracies like the Quebec civil service. They really can't achieve much because they aren't use to producing results.